Posts from the ‘Rants & Raves’ Category

Some time this summer we will have been married 27 years! When first married and in our apartment, the owner installed cable during our stay. So we subscribed and got a package. It took a couple months before we said “we are paying to watch this?” So we dropped cable and agreed to not get it again.

Fast forward about 14 years, to our second house fully wired for cable and an antenna in the attic with a disappearing cable. Cable was not an option and we could not route the antenna cable without opening walls or drilling a bunch of holes. So no air wave TV either. The analog age passes and in comes the digital age. We are way behind and have had no TV since moving here in 1999.

Okay, fast forward to the fall of 2011. Our oldest son buys his TV and it is set up in the living room, an antenna is rigged up, we have TV! The attic antenna wire is pulled up and run through the house, down 2 sets of stairs and around the living room. We now have even better reception (it does go in and out some times).

So we can now watch TV. Mainly sports, some news, some educational stuff, (we do homeschool if you didn’t know) and the occasional TV show (mainly shows our son knows).

Wow! What has happened to TV these past 12 years?! I mean I know it had raunchiness back then, but now you can’t seem to not find it. It is not just the commercials either, which have gotten worse. It is on the TV shows! Stuff that would have been “said” on cable is now on TV. All the double en tenders and innuendos and out right blatancy is there for anyone to watch and hear.

We have three kids 13 and under so for the past 12 years they haven’t really seen all this junk. The same for our older three boys. I think they are better off for not having been exposed to it. Now for my 2 daughters and really all of us being exposed to this kind of stuff is not what was anticipated.

Even the commercials during the sports have left us uncomfortable and my oldest daughter even said so. I mean one minute we are watching men smash each other on the football field, the next it is a Victoria’s Secret scantily clad model strutting down a runway. Beer ads, erectile dysfunction, (wow! I’m uncomfortable writing that!) lingerie and more. Stuff on TV shows being talked about and or being used for humor, some times I want to take a shower afterwards (and not a cold one).

Granted, we don’t have to watch and most of the time the mute button is used, but you don’t get up and leave the room for every commercial break. Speaking of commercial breaks, there is almost as much commercial time as show time now. They repeat and repeat the same thing over and over and over. Did I say they repeat over and over?

In the 12 plus years of not watching TV regularly, I must say it has gone downhill quite a bit in that time frame. I guess that is where everything is heading. Nothing is taboo anymore and anything and everything can and is talked about, whether seriously or for humor. TV shows are being USED to ram someone’s PERSONAL agenda or IDEAS down our throats and not just the newsy type programs. It is not that the envelope is being pushed. It is now being filled, stuffed full of ideals that are NOT ideal! Not in my house.

They aren’t being exposed to the real world you say? Since when is TV the real world. Even school is NOT the real world. How many of you work with other people and they are ALL your age? I would dare to say NONE! The zoo may be as real as you want to get and we have seen what happens when people get too close to certain animals. Would you put yourself or your child down in front of a rattlesnake den? Now THAT’S the real world! There will be consequences. The same for the viewing of what is on the TV if we are not careful viewers.

So we will and do not watch much. Since that is what we are used to doing. Some periods of 24 hours or more, it is not even turned on. We don’t even know what IS on. The kids are definitely not watching anything they want and it is off during the day time hours. They still don’t miss it.

Even for watching sports I could still do with out and have not watched some games. I don’t miss it.

How about you? Have you ever tried not watching TV for a period of time? A day, a week, a month, a couple months or a year or longer? We did from the summer of 1999 to the fall of 2011, over 12 years and we still are not regular viewers.

What would you do with the time? Invest it in your family? Read books? Find a hobby? Go out and enjoy nature?

We kind of did all that and more! All our kids are voracious readers and all above their age level. I have probably read more books these past 12 years than in the rest of my life. There were periods when I read a lot back then too. Some of the books I read were recommended by my kids! We took field trips, went on walks and bike rides. I took up wood crafting. My wife took some classes. We are all learning about computers and not just how to use them.

So television you have definitely gone down the tubes! I and my family are NOT going with you. We will pick and choose and be very picky and choosy about what we watch. See you around.

So what do I do for a blog birthday? I had wanted to design and do a wood craft of some sort, but the week got away from me. So I thought of doing a 1 year recap. First

I started out this blog with the intentions of showing my wood crafts that I was doing mainly using a scroll saw. But I guess, as with all blogs, it evolved to include thoughts and ideas and just a what is going on with life, happenings. Pages were added as ideas came along. That included my Thankfulness page, with monthly dividers and daily additions, hopefully keeping it somewhat neat, easy to read and followable. Thankfulness

I started this out with a couple questions/contest to maybe jump start interest. That seemed to fail. So I will answer them here.

One was what is this tulip used for?

It is a plastic bag holder for drying them.

My Dad made these, so I made some too. After washing out a sandwich bag slip it over the flower to dry and reuse. Don’t just throw them away! Tulip

How is the coloring done on these?

Dipped in a bowl with a food coloring and water mixture.

You could also do this with a brush to mix colors on the wood. Then you need to seal it as the colors do bleed if it gets wet. #1 and Numbers

I gave a lot of these away as gifts to family and friends, sold a couple.

During the football season I did football jerseys.

These were good sellers!

Once I moved my work space inside during the winter I got slack and started messing up with the spray paint or spray lacquer. You gotta follow the directions! Stay far enough away from what you are spraying. Don’t get too close.

Here's what happens if you get too close!

See all those bumps? This wasn’t even the worst one. The spray goes on looking good, then in a matter of minutes it can get all alligator skin-like. Oops, and It was me

Christmas was coming so I started with the Christmas theme. Hey it’s coming again soon!

Here is a future project that I took a picture of. I still need to size it and then print it.

An owl trivet.

Along with many others of course!

I did a blog series on how I do it. It, was a desktop name and when I finished it, packaged it and sent it via the Post Office that’s the last it was seen or heard from! It disappeared in the postal maze and I lost the shipping receipt. I will do another one. Series start

I posted about Wheaton Academy football last year and this year. By the way our last game was last night. Lost again to finish the season 1 – 8. Most of the teams we lost to either made the playoffs or had a good chance to. A lot of tough teams. Josh has another week and a half in his second cast. Then maybe some therapy to get the arm back in shape. Next up the Academic Team, that’s non-contact! 🙂

I did posts on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mothers Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day and July 4th. I missed Easter!

I did a post to Westboro Baptist Church on March 2nd and that got the most views ever for this blog on March 3rd. Here

I did posts about my job search. That is still on going. With other miscellaneous posts thrown in here and there.

Thank you to all my readers and subscribers. Especially those who comment! I enjoy reading your comments and responding. You all have made this blog more worth while to me. You have lifted me up when I was down and been an encouragement to me. I have blog friends around the world!

If you have ideas for me to blog about just ask, or if you have a wood craft you would like me to try send me a pattern or again just ask. I will do my best.

Thank you again! I hope you enjoy this recap!

I am on LinkedIn and Facebook now too, along with MySpace. So come Link and friend me!

Well as the title says 4000. That’s 4000 views so far. I crossed that level a couple days ago and am just getting around to this post. Seems like I am averaging about 1000 views every three months or so. The 1 year birthday of this blog is coming up soon! I guess I will have to do a birthday post too! This year has gone quickly yet it also seemed to drag at times.

The football season is almost over. WA is 1 – 7 now, with one game to go. Last night was another tough loss. I think it is hard on the coaches too. It seems like two different teams some times. They played the good teams tough and teams they could have beaten, they didn’t seem to play well against.

I got to fight the wind at last nights game with the end zone camera. It was steady and hard and had the 30′ pole at a curve west to east. Coach said I kept it pretty steady though and did a good job. He anticipated getting sea-sick watching the video, when he saw the pole swaying in the wind before the game. I think I saw him looking at that time and was wondering what he was thinking.

I am getting more active on the internet. First I started this blog, then got my plumbing web site up, expanded this blog, got on LinkedIn after a friend asked, signed the business up on Manta, and now I am on Facebook from another friend request. So you can get me multiple places. Today I finished putting all my woodcrafting pictures up on Facebook. A new gravatar is coming here, soon as I figure out how to change it.

So unless I have something to post sooner, look for a birthday post on the 21st!

Like this:

It has been quite a while since I posted something here. Just not a lot going on, other than on my Thankfulness page, check it out!

So it is that time of year! Football season! Wheaton Academy starts their season off this weekend with a trip to St. Louis to play Westminster Christian Academy. Game time 5 PM Friday for Varsity and 10 AM Saturday for the JV. Yours truly will be manning the end zone camera during the Varsity game. I don’t know if we will do the JV game.

So anyone in the St. Louis area want to meet me that’s where I’ll be, in one end zone or the other. Drop by and say hi.

As the end zone cameraman I get into all games free and get to be right down on the field and I get to view the game through a 3×5 monitor screen. But when they are at my end of the field it’s like being right out there. Then there are the field goal and point after kicks. The camera makes you feel like a target, but the camera is the target. Dead center of the goal posts. I have flinched a couple times and then you look up and go, whew, a close one!

Our son Josh is a junior this year and is playing Varsity. His positions this year are outside linebacker on defense and lineman/offensive tackle on offense. He has been enjoying the football camp weeks and then the practices. Now the season starts. Time to put the leather to the road, literally, for the first game!

The theme for the season is Count the cost, Win the day. The theme verse is Matthew 6: 33-34 where Jesus talks about first seeking His kingdom and righteousness and it will be given to you and to not worry about tomorrow, for today is enough. My paraphrase!

So I hope to be doing more football jerseys like last year and other football related items in my wood crafting. Along with getting ready for…dare I say it?…the Christmas season. It will be here before we know it!

There I have gone and done it…asking for help. No not for wood crafting I haven’t run into any problems there. It is about my Thankfulness blog for this month, July.

I started getting fancy and using red for the date type just to separate things and maybe make it look a little different or easier to read. But in so doing from July 6 to 16 I lost the original color type after the red date. I can’t figure out how to get the type back to the “normal” color of the rest of the blog.

So anyone got an answer for me? A little help here? TIA!

That’s…Thanks In Advance. 🙂

Having a hot one here in Chicagoland. Mid 90’s and humid, heat indices over 100.

Later, Harold

Problem solved, thanks.

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Today I went over the 3000 views threshold! It’s on the way to 4000! My actual viewership is up on the daily averages lately and I am getting a few more comments. Thanks to those of you taking time to make them. You can also leave them on older posts. I don’t mind going back to them. Some of you are new here so go ahead tell me what comes to mind at each post if you want to.

A new blog friend gave me some asked for advice on how to set up my Thankfulness page. I got it the way I wanted it (with some help from my son James too). Hopefully this will keep the cluttered look down over-all. Thanks Michelle! 🙂

I signed up with a company called Service Magic yesterday and got accepted today! What they do is give me leads on people who want/need plumbing work done. I have to contact them and try to get the work. So I will give this a try and see how it goes. I am not employed by them, just given the opportunity to get work for myself through them.

I guess that is about it for tonight. Friday dead ahead, then the weekend!